January has always been known as the ‘hangover month’ in the influencer marketing industry. Why? Because brands traditionally spend the majority of their budgets during the Q4 holiday season and don’t ramp up campaigns again until Valentine’s Day. As I mentioned in our last issue, that doesn’t mean spending drops to zero. Here’s a look at the daily sponsored ad posts on Instagram this week:
Monday 1/4 - 5,850 posts
Tuesday 1/5 - 6,009 posts
Wednesday 1/6 - 5,767 posts
Thursday 1/7 - 5,789 posts
The avg. posts per day is just over 5,850, which is actually up 2.5% from last January where we saw 5,700/day. That’s a great start for Q1! But who is actually spending? That’s the million-dollar question we get asked almost every week and the answer is: it’s complicated. Not very helpful I know but keep reading, we will dive in more.
On the brand side, influencer budgets are usually determined by 3 things: timing, product and ROI. For example, you might have run a campaign with an apparel brand during the spring and then followed up a few months later to do another campaign and you get the dreaded “We are all set with our campaigns for the next few months.” response from the brand. That doesn’t mean the brand doesn’t want to work with you again, it usually means the timing is off. The brand could be launching a new clothing line or waiting for a specific shopping season like back to school or the holidays. So it’s important to factor in timing when collaborating with brands.
Let’s look at timing for Q1 and how that translates into brands you should be reaching out to this month. The start of every new year brings new year resolutions and that usually translates to health and fitness. New diets, new looks, new workout plans, new fitness equipment, etc. Here are some brands that you probably haven’t heard of (or didn’t know run influencer campaigns) that we have seen launch campaigns in January:
Food/Drink
Health & Fitness
Personal Health & Beauty
We are also starting to see home improvement brands increase their influencer budgets in Q1 as consumers get the itch (especially during the pandemic) to redo/remodel their homes. Here are a few of the home-related brands we have seen running campaigns:
Home Depot
Walmart
Michael’s Stores
Target
Those are the main brand categories we are seeing launch campaigns so far and I hope it gives you a little better idea of who is spending to start the new year.
Is there a specific brand you are looking to work with? Leave us a comment and we can take a look to see if they are currently spending.
What’s next?
In the next issue of FamePick’s Creator Insights, we will be diving into the top sponsored posts of 2020, we did a little preview on our Instagram.
If you enjoyed this issue, please share it with your friends and family 🙂
💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 @rawgear | @zooculture
I’d love to work with The Container Store and Walmart